The invention is related to virtual telephone numbers which can be used to route telephony communications to a telephony device having its own separate telephone number.
Virtual telephone numbers have been used by Internet Protocol (IP) telephony systems to route telephony communications to their customers at a lower cost than would be possible if the telephony communications were routed via a publically switched telephone network (PSTN) or a cellular telephony network. A customer located in a first country and having a telephony device with a telephone number from the first country can have the IP telephony system assign him a virtual telephone number in a second country. A caller located in the second country can then place a telephone call to the virtual telephone number, which will be a local call for the calling party. The call is received by the IP telephony system on the virtual telephone number, and the IP telephony system routes the call to the customer's telephony device in the first country over the Internet. Although the customer is charged for this service, the charges for routing a call between the calling party in the second country and the customer in the first country are considerably less than the cost of placing an international long distance call from the calling party in the second country to the customer in the first country.
A single customer can have the IP telephony system assign him multiple virtual telephone numbers. In some instances, each virtual telephone number would be from a different country, or a different geographical area within a single country. Regardless of which virtual telephone number is called, the telephony communications are all routed to the customer's regular telephony device, which typically has its own different telephone number.
Unfortunately, there is a cost associated with acquiring and maintaining virtual telephone numbers. The cost of obtaining a virtual telephone number varies by location, and in some locations, it can be relatively high. For this reason, it would be desirable to assign the same virtual telephone number to multiple customers. Doing so, however, is problematic. If the same virtual telephone number is assigned to first and second customers, when an incoming telephony communication directed to the virtual telephone number is received, one cannot know which of the first and second customers the calling party is attempting to reach.
What is needed is a way to assign a single virtual telephone number to multiple customers such that it is still possible to route telephony communications directed to the virtual telephone number to the proper party.